


Silas Barnaby and the Green-Eyed Dragon Boy

by suitesamba



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baking, EWE, Humor, M/M, Memory Alteration, Owls, Secret Snarry Swap 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27777919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suitesamba/pseuds/suitesamba
Summary: Silas Barnaby enjoys a perfectly ordinary life as a museum guard in York and – until these last weeks, at least – did not see spectacled cats, ghosts in graveyards, or heads in fireplaces. What’s more, the green-eyed man in the portrait in the Dumbles gallery is definitely not winking at him. A tale of sacrifice, forgiveness and people who aren’t at all what they seem.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 61
Kudos: 183
Collections: Brilliant Complete HP, Secret Snarry Swap20





	Silas Barnaby and the Green-Eyed Dragon Boy

**Author's Note:**

> Thank-you to my friends accioslash and badgerlady for the pre-reads and SPaG and for helping me keep my mind off politics while I wrote about a blue bicycle. Thanks also to AlessNox, my beta from the Fandom Trumps Hate 2020 Auction, who was instrumental in helping me put this story together coherently and in keeping the characters in character. And of course, thanks to the mods, who (I presume) did not drop dead when I turned this story in early and who should not expect that this (very) uncharacteristic pattern will continue.
> 
> Prompt: No. 23 from **Anakletos** : Severus would love to think that once night falls exhibits come to life, but no, night and day they never shut up. And colleagues think him crazy because they don't see it, refuse to believe him. But it's true. Especially the green-eyed man inside a painting, who winks at him when he passes it by

Silas Barnaby eased his bicycle to a slow stop outside the employees’ entrance to the National Railway Museum. He stepped off and secured the bike to the rack with a sturdy padlock, then studied the bicycle critically. He’d had a tumble on uneven pavement near the Minster the day before, and he remembered quite clearly that his rear fender had been dented and scraped. He leaned down and ran his hand thoughtfully over the smooth metal and unblemished paint.

“Must have popped out with the temperature fluctuation overnight,” he reasoned, speaking in low tones to no one but himself. He frowned but decided not to count this as another one of the completely impossible occurrences he’d been having of late. Stranger things had happened, after all, and less fortuitous.

He checked his wristwatch for the time. It was an old-fashioned wind-up affair, one he’d inherited from his father, or perhaps even his grandfather. He didn’t recall precisely, only that it was extremely old and he’d had it for as long as he remembered. It kept the time reasonably well and had a curious mechanism that sprang out to stand upright in the middle like a streetlamp. He suspected it functioned as a sundial, as strange characters appeared at the edges when parts of the watch were cast in shadow by the contraption. He meant to take himself to the British Museum one day and compare the characters to those on the Rosetta Stone, but every time he considered doing so, he found he was much too busy to be bothered. And wasn’t that odd, as he secretly wished to secure a spot on that popular antiques show on the telly and thought this watch might just be his ticket.

The watch in question read five minutes shy of seven o’clock. The museum closed at seven this time of year, and he was expected to be inside before daytime security escorted the last patrons out. It was a good job, though oddly unsatisfying given the very reasonable pay and undemanding responsibilities. He simply had to make rounds, turn lights on and off as he moved from display to display, and be immediately available if the guard monitoring the cameras alerted him of any irregularities. Given the irregularities he’d personally witnessed of late, he was convinced that the camera guard spent lots of time playing with her mobile phone and very little actually monitoring the cameras.

Silas had had this job for nearly five years now, and there had been the occasional spot of trouble, but he was happy to say that the British Railroad Museum did not seem to attract criminals – hardened or casual. He sometimes wondered what exactly his job added since the place was riddled with alarms and cameras, but he wasn’t going to turn up his nose at more than four hundred quid a week just for patrolling the building from seven ‘til midnight five nights a week.

Thirty minutes after clocking in, he was making his way along the edge of a model railway display. He didn’t see the point of having model trains since the full-sized versions were right here on display for all to see, but here they were, and patrol them he must. He’d rounded the corner behind the mountain with its rock tunnel when a tabby cat darted out from behind the mountain and hid herself under the skirting around the display. 

Except that he couldn’t possibly have seen a cat. Cats weren’t allowed in the museum. There were no litterboxes here, for pity’s sake, and the exterminators came regularly enough to eradicate any mice and vermin. She – Barnaby assumed it was a she, anyway. It _looked_ like a she, all prim and proper when it sat out of reach in the corner, grooming itself. She wouldn’t be there when he lifted the skirting and tried to shoo her out. He didn’t bother trying anymore and had given up hoping to convince his supervisor that there was a stray about. She didn’t believe him the first time he told her, nor the second, and had looked at him suspiciously, as if he were deliberately creating a fictitious cat in order to disrupt her day.

He saw the cat that wasn’t really there again an hour later as he patrolled the outdoor platform displays. Logically, he knew it couldn’t be the same cat because he’d closed and locked the door behind him when he came outside to the platform and he’d have seen the cat, or tripped over it, had it darted through with him. Another cat then. Another grey tabby with the curious spectacle-like marks about its eyes that lived in the museum where cats of any sort, even the well-behaved spectacled variety, were certainly not allowed.

His fifteen-minute break began at 10 p.m., and at 10:02 Silas settled into the ancient, overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace in the break room with a mug of tea and a snack-sized packet of Ginger Nuts. He kept one eye out for the troublesome feline, but saw nothing unusual save –

No. He saw nothing unusual. There was absolutely _nothing_ in the flames of the fireplace – nothing at all that shouldn’t be there. Certainly not the fleeting image of a woman’s head. Because disembodied heads absolutely did _not_ float in fireplaces. Especially not wide-eyed heads with radishes affixed to its ears.

He saw nothing else in the fire save a few charred crimson feathers – unfortunate robins nesting in the chimney again - so he left the break room and continued on to check the doors leading to the street entrances, then made his way through the 1930s-era Pullman car display, where he knocked another one of the fat brown frogs off a carriage window. This one left a smear, as had the one he’d found the night before, and he took out his handkerchief and futilely wiped at the window. The darn things smelled like chocolate – he meant to look up the species when he got home as he didn’t recall it from biology lessons. At approximately eleven o’clock, an hour before he was to clock out, he keyed into the Wulfric Dumbles memorial “Trains in Literature” gallery and closed the door securely behind him.

According to the plaque he’d read a hundred times already, the late Wulfric Dumbles and his grandson had been killed some years before by rampaging bulls in Pamplona, where they’d gone as spectators. Wulfric’s father had invented a labour-saving railway switching device, and Wulfric had donated most of his vast fortune to philanthropic causes, including a hefty sum to the National Railway Museum to establish this very gallery.

Before securing his current position, Silas hadn’t thought much about trains in literature. But after patrolling this room regularly for five years, he realised that they appeared virtually everywhere. From the Orient Express, to the Little Engine that Could, to the beloved trains of the Railway Children of Yorkshire itself, trains filled the pages of books for the young and old alike. Books he hadn’t found time to read, unfortunately, though they all sounded very interesting, and he planned on getting to them someday. 

And while the gallery was filled with displays about the adventures of these literary trains and their literary passengers, what intrigued Silas most about the Wulfric Dumbles Memorial Gallery was the portrait of the old man’s short-lived grandson, James Henry Porter.

Dumbles himself had a much larger portrait – larger than life, certainly, in a more prominent position in the gallery. James’ smaller portrait hung just opposite the door. It would be the first thing that caught one’s eye when entering if it weren’t for all the other magnificent displays that overpowered it. The young man, who had been not quite nineteen when he met his grisly end, was pictured riding a magnificent dragon, but positioned in such a way that the focus of the painting was the man himself as he clung bravely to the creature’s scaly neck and winked saucily at Silas. 

Except that he didn’t. _Couldn’t._ Wink, that is.

The dragon was portrayed in a dozen subtle shades of green, a fitting complement to the young man’s vibrant eyes. Eyes that made Silas pleasantly uncomfortable, as if staring into them was a sin, or taboo. Besides the sparkling eyes – and Silas reminded himself again that painted eyes do not sparkle – James Porter had a mop of messy dark hair and a very curious scar on his forehead.

Full disclosure – Silas was the only one who who’d actually seen the scar. It seemed to be visible only when Silas was alone in the room, when James tilted his head to watch him or squinted as he made his rounds. Silas suspected the young man had - _had had_ \- very poor vision and wondered if the portrait artist had neglected to paint on his spectacles. But when others were present – when Silas visited the museum during regular hours on his off-hours – that mop of messy hair remained firmly painted over the scar, which – were it visible – would be shaped like a lightning bolt and slightly off center on his forehead. The portrait man didn’t even entertain the thought of a wink or a nod if Silas wasn’t completely alone in the room.

Curious.

Of course, Silas knew all of this was impossible, just as he knew somewhere deep down, somewhere he couldn’t quite _touch_ no matter how deep he probed, that it was absolutely real. Tonight, when he entered the room, he averted his eyes from the portrait and did his patrol in a clockwise direction from the door. He’d reach the portrait last this way and could devote his full attention to it after he’d patrolled the entire gallery. While the portrait was his favourite thing in the entire museum, if asked, he’d not admit it, and he rarely admitted it even to himself. It would certainly be difficult to explain – after all, the museum was filled with a treasure trove of interesting items and one could find portraits of tragic lives lost in nearly any museum anywhere.

So, after making the rounds of the gallery that particular evening as he always did, Silas stepped up in front of the portrait, closed his eyes, and assumed his at-rest stance, hands tucked behind his back and locked together. He took a deep breath, exhaled as he counted to ten, trying to let go of whatever it was that kept him from seeing – from understanding – all that was just there, just out of his reach, just below the surface, then slowly opened his eyes.

The bottom of the elusive lightning bolt scar was peeking out just below the messy fringe, and the impossible green eyes seemed to look straight through the Silas who lived in York, looking at something else – _someone else._

He only allowed himself five minutes. Five minutes a day to let go and believe. He’d found that the portrait man simply could not stay motionless for five minutes, at least not while Silas devoted his entire attention to him with his guard lowered. There would always be a twitch of the lips, a blink of the eye, a scrunch of the forehead. But no matter what, Silas would have five minutes to stare at that face and let the _feeling_ wash over him while his brain strove to dredge up _why_ he should know it. _Why_ he should be so intrigued by a pretend boy on a pretend dragon who wouldn’t have given him the time of day should they have met upon the streets of York. 

But if ever Silas dared to reach out and brush his fingertips over the surface of the canvas, the simple touch of skin to paint would sting him like a nettle, and he’d pull his fingers away and find the green eyes dull, the beautiful man no longer man at all, but simply paint on canvas.

Today Silas did not touch. Today he gazed steadily, eye to eye, until, four and a half minutes in, the man in the painting had the audacity to wink at him – to _wink_! It wasn’t just a facial tic – it wasn’t! The corner of his mouth lifted just a smidge and he bit back a smile. Silas scowled.

“Rather impetuous of you to try to run with the bulls,” he said aloud. “Not that I’m surprised, given you were brave enough to ride a dragon.”

The painting’s eyes widened in surprise, then hastily resumed their ordinary expression.

No. That was wrong.

“If there were such things as dragons, which there are not,” Silas muttered, more for himself than for the young man. He turned away with a brisk pivot and headed toward the door to continue his rounds, but caught the reflection of something to his right and turned his head toward the portrait of Wulfric Dumbles.

“Your glasses are painted on,” he scolded. “And your eyes do not twinkle.”

He continued out into the passageway, closing the door securely behind him, then stood very still, heart pounding, listening.

The voices began almost immediately.

“The spell is starting to break, Harry,” said the tired voice of an old man. “You must act soon.”

“We have a plan, Professor,” responded the second voice. It was a younger voice, tense but less careworn. “We just need a little more time. And Hermione is certain we’ll have until Sunday at midnight.”

“Ah, to have the eyes of a portrait and the brain of a living wizard. I envy you sometimes, Harry.”

“Well, unfortunately I can only see out of one set of eyes at a time. It’s a good thing this is an evenings-only job, with Percy keeping me tied up all day at the Ministry.”

The older voice laughed. “Would you have done it had you known they’d make Percy your - ?” 

“Of course,” he answered. There was a catch in his voice. “In a heartbeat.”

“He’s started coming here during the daytime,” said the first voice again. “He stands in front of your portrait for long minutes. Harry – you must be prepared. There will be a surge when the spell expires. Miss Granger’s spellwork is masterful – the timing….”

Silas carefully eased the door open, intent on seeing evidence that these portraits were actually communicating one with the other. Silas had a knack for stealth, and had spied on many a private conversation inadvertently these past few years. Though the door didn’t make even a whisper of sound, the voices quieted immediately. He stood there, unmoving, for two solid minutes but the only sound he heard was the faint buzz of doxies in the curtains.

“Bloody doxies,” he muttered as he closed the door. He took two steps, stopped, frowned severely, whirled to glare at the closed door as if it were responsible for him uttering nonsense words, then resolutely continued on his rounds.

His mood was broken moments later when a rodent, a curious black-coloured mole, scuttled across the carpet in front of him carrying a pocket watch in its mouth. Silas paused, watching the small animal skitter across the floor and disappear behind a loose piece of moulding. Curious. He didn’t know that moles were attracted to shiny objects as crows were, and he’d always thought them brown, not black, and approximately half the size of the one he’d just seen, come to think of it.

His brain, normally sharp these past years now that he was consistently sober, offered up another nonsense word. _Niffler._

He dismissed his brain’s offering with a sniff. He hoped the small creatures who lived on the Moor weren’t being driven indoors by a turn in the weather. No matter - he’d certainly be reporting this infestation to the head housekeeper. Housekeeping was obviously not doing a proper job cleaning up the visitor’s café area and must be leaving crumbs and rubbish about. 

Of course, it was possible there was something larger going on here. Something more sinister. He’d seen those specials on BBC – robot animals introduced to colonies by scientists. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine them in the hands of professional robbers who wanted to steal the museum’s best pieces.

He’d been bringing his own thermos of tea and packaged biscuits to work, lest the visual and auditory irregularities he’d been experiencing of late were the result of a psychedelic substance added to the tea here, or inadvertently sampled, a _Through the Looking Glass_ experiment where he, Silas Barnaby, was fated to be Alice. He was reminded of the sweets he’d sampled from a bowl on the table in the break room – he’d thought they were jellybeans, but they’d tasted like earwax and grass clippings. A juvenile prank, to be sure. 

He’d gone to consult with his doctor, a bushy-haired woman of extremely agile intelligence whom he’d found through his dentist, who happened to be her mother, and she’d checked him out thoroughly and assured him his mind was perfectly sound. Yes, he traveled all the way to London for his check-ups, but it wasn’t terribly far by train, and when he’d developed an abscess several years back, Nigel, the young one-eared Royal Navy veteran who had an annual pass to the museum and could be found many mornings in the courtyard, gave him his own dentist’s card and told him it was definitely worth the time and fare to London.

“Make a journal, Silas,” his doctor had advised him just two weeks ago. “Keep it for a month, then come back and we’ll do more tests – an MRI, if I can get it through. But I think you’ll find that in a month, things will have worked themselves out. And do get plenty of sleep – no caffeine after tea-time. You’d be amazed at how the body reacts to sleep deprivation.”

He dutifully filled out his journal every night, after he clocked out but before he bicycled the few blocks home. These odd, impossible sightings and experiences were not limited to his work hours, but he filled in those as they happened in real time. Most troublesome of the outside-of-work episodes was the ghost in the cemetery. It didn’t behave at all as he imagined ghosts should. Ghosts were dreary sorts, frightening, formless and wispy. The ghost in the graveyard, the churchyard just round the corner from his first-floor walkup, was clearly a woman, and instead of trying to startle him or attempt to keep him away from her haunt, she would materialise when he was within sight and wave to him as he passed, sometimes calling out to him imploringly. “Oh, to ride a bicycle again! I had one that could fly, you know. Nearly as fast as my brother’s old Clean Sweep.”

A bicycle nearly as fast as a Hoover?

He’d slowed a time or two to look for the projector over the gate or in one of the yews beside it, but he’d not seen as much as an extension cord. He’d looked up the churchyard in “England’s Haunted History” but it didn’t appear, even in a footnote. It wouldn’t be so off-putting if the ghost was completely whole, but she’d died from a broken neck as her head rolled around loosely on her shoulders and sometimes pointed completely backward.

He knew it was an elaborate ruse – though he hadn’t absolutely ruled out the existence of ghosts or of an afterlife – because no one else ever saw her, and he’d not mentioned her presence to anyone since he first began glimpsing her the month before and asked the vicar about it. The vicar had looked at him oddly and suggested that his night job might be depriving him of sufficient sleep.

Sleep again. He got plenty of sleep – seven hours every night. It certainly wasn’t a deficit that every noise seemed to wake him, that he seemed ready to move from slumber to wide awake and ready for action in the blink of an eye. 

At least he didn’t have a ghost haunting his flat, though the occasional strange occurrence had started to happen in his own home as well. He’d adopted a pet some time before, a great hulk of a cat with a bad temper and ginger fur. It had almost forced itself in one stormy night, and though he hadn’t been thinking of getting a pet, at the time it had seemed like a good idea to keep it. He called the cat Sourpuss and fed it fish and tidbits from his dinner. It seldom let Silas touch him, but the cat kept a watchful eye on his master and kept the flat vermin-free, though he wouldn’t do a thing about the ruddy owls.

And lately, the cat had begun to watch the fireplace.

It would perch on the ottoman, relax into a long line with paws bunched beneath his wide face and bottle-brush tail stretched out behind him, and focus on the fire, if Silas had one going, or on the logs if he didn’t. He’d blink his large golden eyes sleepily and studiously ignore any ruckus the owls were making.

Silas did not understand why the ruddy birds had decided to nest in the Horse Chestnut tree outside his window this year. The owlets had fledged but refused to leave, perching on his kitchen windowsill, scavenging rubbish from the street – old envelopes, scraps of newsprint, bits of plastic and wax – and leaving it there on the ledge so that he had to wrest open the old window nearly every day to sweep off the detritus. He felt somewhat guilty for how he felt about them, as they were actually quite useful creatures, though he couldn’t quite work out _how_ they were useful. They’d certainly be more helpful if they could be trained to deposit the rubbish in proper bins instead of on his windowsill.

Regardless, the cat really should do something about the owls. In all likelihood, it would only have to glare out the window menacingly to scare them off. But no. The cat remained on the ottoman, staring into the fireplace. Waiting? Watching? Admittedly, the fireplace in the flat was unusual. Built on the scale of one belonging to an old manor house, it was more small room than fireplace. It warmed the room pleasantly but was so enormous that he could barely reach the mantel shelf above it.

That particular shelf had held a heavy clock when he moved into the flat five years before, a relic he assumed was left by the previous tenants and which he hadn’t bothered to move as it was already in the logical place for a timepiece and he didn’t have anything better to put there. It still kept good time, all these years later, though oddly enough it didn’t have an electric cord and Silas had never had to wind it. It was an unusual clock, with the normal hands, plus several extras that spent most of their time motionless pointed to twelve, but occasionally buzzed hurriedly around the face, chasing each other and passing up and lapping the hour and minute hands. When the clock chimed the hour, a small door in the face opened and a bird popped out. It was painted crimson and gold and sang a beautiful little tune that never failed to warm Silas’ heart when he heard it. 

On this particular night, Silas let himself into the flat at 12:22 in the morning, dropped his keys and wallet into the basket on the table that he’d placed there the day he moved in for that very purpose, and went immediately into his bedroom to ready himself for sleep. He’d inexplicably brought a drawerful of old-fashioned nightshirts when he moved here from Scotland and had stared at them thoughtfully while he unpacked them. His father’s, most likely – a forgotten relic he’d not remembered to dispose of. But as his pyjamas seemed to have been lost in the move, he’d slipped one over his head that first night and had never bothered to restock the flannel shirts and trousers he surely preferred. Instead, he’d bought a dressing gown to go over the nightshirts and had gone on – an economical solution to an unfortunate oversight. 

In fact, his clothing in general had been a source of annoyance. The clothes he unpacked when he moved in were certainly his clothes – they fit him, they were slightly worn, and were of the appropriate colors – mostly black, with touches of grey, blue and green and one shirt that was – quite inexplicably – red and gold. He never wore that shirt and on more than one occasion took it out to bin it but was never quite able to go through with it. 

The clothes were good clothes. Appropriate clothes. Clothes he would certainly purchase again if he had a need. The problem was that they fit him just fine but didn’t feel quite right. He began to envy the vicar with his cassock. He’d watch him sometimes, walking down the road toward the parsonage, and admire the long row of buttons and the way the hem snapped as he moved. 

He had a fleeting recollection of being measured for clothing in a small shop with a busybody woman pinning up the hem of his - He shook his head. _Trousers._ Somewhere in Scotland, but as always, when he dwelled too long on his past, he soon became distracted with a pressing problem at hand. And this time it was Sourpuss the cat, at the owl window in the kitchen trying to scare off a persistent owl who was pecking incessantly at the window.

“About time, you grumpasaurus,” Silas muttered as he went to investigate. “Ruddy owls.”

He didn’t recognize the owl as one of the usual brood, but it was past midnight and the moon wasn’t out. It must have been one of them, though, as it was clutching an envelope in its talon. Silas squinted – the envelope was addressed, though the writing was blurred and the heavy parchment paper torn. He could just make out the words “Severus” and “Snap” but the rest was illegible.

He scooted the cat off the table and moved to open the window, but the cat made a sudden leap forward, hurling its entire body against the pane. The cat yowled, the owl fell suddenly backward off the ledge, then the cat jumped down and ran between Silas’ legs. When he turned back to the window both the owl and the letter were gone.

“Severus Snap?” he asked himself, trying out what had to be a name as he attempted to look down at the ground below. He shook his head, puzzling over it. “Well, he should be more careful with his post,” he said gruffly as Sourpuss darted into his bedroom ahead of him. “It certainly isn’t my responsibility to hunt the man down and return a lost letter.”

He completed his bedtime ablutions, determined to get back into his routine, then settled into bed and drifted off, refusing to think about the odd occurrence with the owl, while outside below his kitchen window, a green-eyed man with a mop of black hair crouched down beside a very still owl.

“Rennervate,” the man whispered, touching the owl with the tip of a stick he kept hidden in a pocket of his shirtsleeve. "You’re a mess, Neptune. You were supposed to bring letters from the Ministry to _us_.” The man tucked the owl into his shirt pocket, a pocket much too small to hold a bird of that size, then broke the seal on the letter, quickly read it, then tucked it away with the owl.

“Well, that’s no surprise – he’s to appear at the Ministry next Monday to get his wand back,” he muttered. He glanced up at the window and sighed. “Severus, I hope one day you’ll forgive me.”

ooOOOoo

Some days Silas wished he remembered more about his life in Scotland.

He was content here in York. He had a satisfying job with a good wage, a pension from the school where he’d worked in Scotland, and free time to explore his hobbies. 

But it would be nice to have more of a past, perhaps a family. His parents had died when he was hardly out of school – he remembered them, but not too kindly, and pushed the sad and unpleasant memories of them that emerged to the back of his mind, behind that odd fog created by an overabundance of alcohol. He didn’t have siblings, didn’t recall cousins. If he had anyone close, he imagined he’d turned them away with his drinking and gambling and womanising.

Well, he vaguely remembered drinking and gambling, anyway. But there must have been womanising too, given the drinking and gambling, though he hadn’t had the urge to find female company since he’d sobered up and moved here. There had been trouble with the law, a drunken brawl and a fight that left him with horrific scars about his neck from where the brutes had stabbed him and laid his throat open. 

It was actually a very good thing he didn’t remember the details. The vicar’s sister, a no-nonsense woman named Winona who’d worked with Silas at the school, had made the arrangements for him to come here when he got out of hospital and had set everything up for him from the flat to the job to the transportation to get here.

And most days, he was perfectly content with his orderly, predictable life.

But lately, things were different. He’d begun to remember bits and pieces. Not real memories – just flashes, images, impressions. Something he glimpsed while riding his bicycle would remind him of something else, of the life he’d led back in Scotland where he’d taught grammar to children, drank himself into oblivion and gambled away what money was left after the drink. He shuddered at the idea of teaching grammar to children. Small wonder he’d turned to drink.

And the dreams – dreams of battle. Flashes of light in dark dark skies. Dreams of lost love, forbidden love, secret love. Of death and blood and monsters, half man, half creature.

Nightmares, not dreams. No wonder he was sleep deprived. Practical and pragmatic, Silas chalked it up to his diet and quit red meat and most dairy products.

He’d made it a practice to climb to the top of the Minster tower at least once a week this last year, after he’d noticed his trousers getting tight and decided he needed more exercise and fewer baked treats. As he couldn’t fathom giving up the pastries, he opted for exercise. Of course the climb was familiar, as he did it regularly, but this last time, just the Wednesday past, he’d had the strongest sense of déjà vu as he climbed the stone stairs, then crossed the narrow rooftop walkway to the tower. When he’d glanced out over the railing to see the town laid out before him, he’d been momentarily surprised.

As if he’d been expecting to see something else entirely.

 _A forest_ , his mind had supplied. _A lake. A quaint town in the distance._

The Quidditch Pitch?

He tried the unfamiliar word on his lips then scolded himself for having ice cream the night before.

And then there was that business with the owl and the letter. _Severus._ An odd name –and somehow familiar. He must know it from history lessons. When he stopped off at the library before lunch to return his borrowed books, he took a moment to look it up. 

_Lucius Septimius Severus._ Roman emperor. He’d invaded Scotland – Silas most certainly almost remembered learning about him in school. The name Lucius, in particular, rang a bell.

And then, when Silas had passed Nigel, the young man who’d lost his ear in battle, as he was walking home, out of the blue he’d asked him after his mother.

Nigel had eyed him oddly. 

“My mum? Fine, I suppose,” he’d answered at last. “And – er – thanks for asking.”

Why in the world had he done that? He didn’t know the man’s mother and until that very moment was quite sure he’d never even considered that Nigel had one.

But of all the odd things happening around him, the portraits were the most disconcerting, and not just because they winked at him or talked to each other as soon as he left the gallery. No, the portraits were a problem because of his emotional response to them. He’d noticed them before – he’d been patrolling these halls for nearly five years – but only in the last few weeks had he begun to react to them in such a tumultuous and unexplainable way.

Last week, on Friday night, he’d stood in front of the portrait of old Dumbles and asked the man – out loud, mind you – why he’d thought it appropriate to take a virtual child – a young man of eighteen or nineteen – to Pamplona, of all places, and set him in harm’s way. And he told him in no uncertain terms that he and he alone – Wulfric Dumbles – was responsible for James Porter’s death. Yet the anger he felt, righteous anger for the waste of a young and certainly vibrant life, was tempered by something he couldn’t name. He scolded himself. _Don’t be so quick to judge. Perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps the young man had foolishly gone and the old man had tried to stop him. Perhaps they were there for another reason altogether. Perhaps one had died trying to save the other._

Why was he giving this man that he didn’t know the benefit of the doubt? 

He didn’t spend much time considering it as this particular portrait stirred up too many uncomfortable emotions – he wondered if it reminded him of his father – though he doubted his father had sported a long white beard when he’d died before his fiftieth birthday. His grandfather then? He sighed. He had no memories of grandparents of any sort at all, and certainly not one with sparkling blue eyes.

The other portrait, of young James, also stirred up uncomfortable emotions. _Very_ uncomfortable emotions. Staring at the portrait of James Porter made him think of danger, and long-buried resentment, all layered with an odd sort of _fondness,_ and _forgiveness,_ and _longing_ and _anger_ and the most cautious, ancient _joy_ and none of that made any sense at all, did it? He was pulled to the portrait but unable to sort through why, and he knew it was somehow wrong yet found the pull nearly impossible to ignore.

The week after he’d heard the voices in the Trains in Literature Gallery passed quickly by. He didn’t overhear the mysterious voices again and spent his days off as he so often did – baking.

There was something so satisfying about baking, about creating biscuits and confections and breads and cakes from basic ingredients like flour and sugar and eggs and butter but ending up with something so delectable, so downright _tasty_ by the subtle way it was finished, and the bits and dabs of additional ingredients like fruit soaked in brandy or lavender or cardamom. 

How you stirred, how long, how forcefully, with what implement – was important. As was the temperature of the eggs, the butter. Whether the flour was sifted. Precisely how it was measured. The order the ingredients were added. The matter of the bowl itself – glass or metal or even plastic. All of these things _mattered_ , all of these things were critical to the outcome. He’d stumbled on a recipe book in the bottom of a box at the Oxfam shop and had brought it home on a lark, craving something pumpkin-y, and he’d taken to the science of baking immediately and then tipped head over heels into the art.

He fancied that someday he’d be good enough for that baking show on the telly, the one where everyone was incredibly supportive of each other through foibles and failures, but he didn’t tell a soul, not even Reggie the barkeep at Sorrows and Sighs, the pub he favoured for fish and chips and a pint glass of seltzer water and when he really needed at least the aroma of spilled beer.

He brought six of his applesauce pumpkin raisin walnut muffins over to Flora’s little cottage on the way to work on Monday. Flora was his favorite librarian at the town library. She was nearly eighty years old and spoke with a delightful brogue he understood better than anyone in town. He attributed this odd ability to his time spent teaching in Scotland. She had several cats, who ignored him in favor of nosing at the bag of muffins until she fed them bits, which they also ignored. He saved the last six muffins of the dozen for Nigel, whom he found sitting on his usual park bench feeding the pigeons as he walked from Flora’s to the museum.

“Don’t feed them to the birds,” he warned, still with his pants in a twist after the cat incident. Nigel accepted the muffins with a smile as he quickly tucked something into his pocket. Silas narrowed his eyes suspiciously – what would the young man be doing with a roll of parchment?

“Grocery list,” Nigel said with his charming grin. He unwrapped a muffin and bit into it. “Better than Mum’s,” he said with a pleased sigh.

“A high compliment indeed,” Silas returned.

Nigel’s eyes widened and a look Silas couldn’t decipher stole over his face but just as quickly disappeared.

“Yeah,” he said around a mouthful of muffin. “Mums are the best bakers, eh?”

Silas shrugged. “We’ll see about that,” he said enigmatically as he nodded and continued on his way.

Silas arrived at work precisely on time that Sunday evening, clocked in and started his nightly ritual for the one thousand two hundred and fifty-second time.

Not that he was counting. He was just very precise about – things. He’d celebrated day one thousand with a second patrol of the model train gallery. He wasn’t totally without spontaneity in his life.

But he’d learned that the measured precision with which he approached life kept his mind focused and sharp, and when his mind was focused and sharp, it didn’t drift to areas it had no business going in the first place. Dark places. Places full of self-loathing, fear and pain and sometimes – he mentally lowered his voice – sometimes even _forbidden desire._

And he had no business going there. He was a new man – reformed. He had a good pension, a good job and he had friends enough – Flora was always there when he needed a pick-me-up, and even one-eared Nigel would have a round of fish and chips with him, or a coffee at the little shop inside the museum, if he needed something more. He’d have tea with the vicar, and would attend services intermittently in return, though more from guilt than true piety. 

But tonight he was on top of his game. He’d had a success with the muffins, and even the substitution of sultanas for traditional raisins had worked out in the end. He’d had a fine night’s sleep, and it hadn’t rained, and the owls had only perched on his ledge and stared inside instead of trying to peck their way in. His mind was distracted with ideas for the fall surprise biscuits he planned to make for the town bake-off during this year’s Guy Fawkes celebration when he entered the Trains in Literature gallery toward the end of his rounds that evening.

Something was off and he noticed it immediately, but there was no possible explanation for it. 

The portrait of James Porter on the dragon had been vandalised.

He walked quickly toward it, his heart and stomach sinking as he reached for his mobile – then immediately thought better of it. Better to get the facts first. 

Oddly – very oddly – the portrait itself was intact. The gilded frame was still whole and unmarked. The canvas was clean and undamaged. No paint or other material defaced the painting. It was just – altered. 

Impossible, yet…not.

What good, he asked himself, was a portrait of a young man on a dragon when the dragon was present but the young man was not?

James Porter had been erased . Removed. Eradicated. If it wasn’t for the engraved placard on the frame that read “James Henry Porter 1980 – 1999” there would be no evidence, save Silas’ once sharp though admittedly spotty memory, that the young man had ever been in the portrait in the first place. The dragon’s neck that he’d clung to was depicted in detail, the background clear and vibrant behind.

Once again, Severus’ hand reached into his pocket for his mobile and once again he immediately decided he didn’t really need it.

He leaned in closer to the squint at the painting. He’d noticed something.

In the background, hidden until now by the man in the foreground, was a castle. A high castle with turrets and towers sitting on a hillside above a lake and a forest and ….

“Hello.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin at the voice and whirled around, hand instinctively dipping into his pocket for his – well, his mobile – it was the only thing in that pocket, wasn’t it? But as his hand wrapped around his mobile, he suddenly found himself unable to move anything but his eyes. And his eyes – his eyes were fixed on the source of the voice.

For it was the boy from the portrait – only not a boy. Not a boy at all. This was a grown man – young, for sure, but with the wisdom of experience in his eyes. Green eyes, so much more vibrant than the painted ones, with messy black hair cropped shorter than in the portrait, and the scar – that lightning bolt scar – plainly on display below fringe too short to hide it. 

“Listen to me, Silas. Listen very carefully.”

The man’s voice was calm and reassuring but hitched with something Silas could not name. He watched Silas carefully, almost – longingly? No – that didn’t make sense at all. He was treating him as one would treat an injured wild thing. Cautious. Careful. “At midnight tonight, things will – change. You’ll understand some things that haven’t made much sense. And you’ll have questions – lots of questions. And you’re going to be very angry as well. Rightfully so, I think, and you’ll have to decide what you want to do about that, but first you have to do something. You have to be at the Ministry tomorrow morning at ten o’clock in the morning to pick up something very important. There’ll be a letter for you in your flat – on your kitchen table. Please – no matter what happens – or how you feel – you must go home after work and read the letter then sleep on it. I’m in the same place – you’ll know where to find me if you – if you want to.”

As Silas continued to stare at the impossible apparition, wishing it was _real_ \- that the lovely young man knew him, was his friend, wanted him to visit - it did an impossible thing. It took a step toward him, then another, until it was only a hair’s breadth away and he could smell a hint of firewood smoke, and soap, and perspiration. Then it leaned in and kissed him on his mouth, a press of lips that felt so much more real than it was, that should not have done _anything_ to him yet which made him _want_ as he hadn’t known was possible.

“I love you, you git,” said the portrait man (whose breath was real whose lips were real whose eyes were real), and his words were fond and his eyes were soft and a little bit sad. “And don’t you dare forget it.”

And then, with a sharp _crack_ that seemed to startle Silas from his frozen state, he disappeared and Silas stumbled forward.

Righting himself, he whirled around to face the portrait, and the young man was there again, clinging to the neck of the dragon. He spun again to face the spot where he’d been, but the old man’s portrait stared at him benevolently and did not stir or twitch or twinkle.

He glanced at his wristwatch, breathing hard. He was aching – literally _aching_ inside. Everything was just outside of his grasp. There but not there. His but not his.

Eleven thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes ‘til midnight.

_Poppycock. Put it aside, Silas. It’s nothing. It’s always nothing._

He spent another ten minutes staring at the portrait of the green-eyed man but it didn’t so much as wiggle an eyebrow. He considered for a moment, as he locked the gallery door behind him some minutes later, whether he’d inadvertently introduced some psychedelic ingredient into his muffins, then wondered about the source of the sultanas, the only remotely plausible possibility. He worried briefly about Flora, and Nigel, who’d certainly have eaten the muffins by now. The possibility was his only hope that he wasn’t already half past completely mad.

At eleven fifty-five, butterflies in stomach despite the fact that absolutely nothing was going to happen at midnight, as absolutely nothing _had_ happened in the gallery, he broke form and clocked out five minutes early. He locked the doors, marched to his bicycle, unchained it from the rack and mounted and pushed off two minutes before the clock struck midnight.

The Minster bells began to sound the hour as he left the museum property. He didn’t feel the slightest bit different. A bit of the tension in his shoulders eased off.

The clock continued to mark the hour slowly, ominously. One bell. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Silas pedaled.

On ten, he scoffed and decided to have a good look at those sultanas when he got home.

When the clock struck twelve, he was pedaling down a straight-away two blocks from his flat.

FUCKING HARRY POTTER GODDAMN GRYFFINDORS FUCK FUCK FUCK MINERVA MCGONAGALL AND THE SODDING MINISTRY OF MAGIC HE’D RATHER GO TO AZKABAN THAN GIVE UP MAGIC FOR FIVE YEARS MERLIN NOT YOU TOO POPPY WHO THE HELL DID THEY THINK HE WAS AND WHERE WAS KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT HE WAS GOING TO PULVERISE HIM WITH HIS FISTS BEFORE HE CURSED HIM INTO NEXT YEAR

He blinked his eyes, finding himself in a very unlikely place in a very unlikely position.

Ouch.

Severus Snape untangled himself from the contraption in which he was caught up – a sky-blue bicycle – and brushed dirt and debris off the knees of his robes, which weren’t robes at all but trousers. Shakily, he got to his feet. The moon was waxing toward full, so he had the benefit of some light besides the streetlamps to assess his surroundings. A bicycle? Electric street lamps? Where in Dante’s nine circle of hell _was_ he?

 _Think!_ His hand was already in his pocket looking for his - 

Mobile phone? He stared at the device then hurriedly pocketed it again. His mind was a jumble. His thoughts felt…old. Mouldy. As if they’d been buried for a very long time and had finally dug themselves out. He blinked slowly, studying the very unlikely sky blue bicycle.

Bicycle. _His_ bicycle. He’d bought it when he moved here, from the man at the newspaper office. He rode it to work and around town. 

To work….

His hand dipped automatically into the back pocket of his trousers and he removed a well-kept wallet. He opened it and stared at the photo ID. A man with his face, scars peeking out of the top of his button-down shirt. A man with his hair, cut Muggle short, and a rather annoyed frown that was definitely saying “Just get on with it and take the damn photograph.”

_Silas Barnaby._

He tentatively touched what was left of his hair.

He was Silas Barnaby. He worked as a night watchman at the National Railway Museum. 

Except he was Severus Snape and he worked… he worked…he….

_Hogwarts?_

No. He worked at the National Railway Museum. He had a key in his pocket that opened his comfortable flat in York. He had a warm bed waiting for him, and a sourdough starter on the counter and library books to read and return.

He stared at the bicycle, then resolutely lifted it off the ground and set it properly on the road and climbed aboard.

Did he know how to ride a bicycle?

_My name is Silas Barnaby. I work at the National Railway Museum. I ride a broo…._

_Don’t think don’t think don’t think!_ he ordered himself as he let muscle memory take over and direct him home.

As he leaned the bicycle to the rack beside the door, staring at the combination lock that secured it to the rack in dismay, a great fluttering in the tree in the center of the yard distracted him yet again. He turned to find a short-eared owl (how did he know that?) flying toward him. The owl alit on his shoulder, nibbled fondly at his ear, and held out a parchment roll in one great taloned foot.

“Neptune,” he breathed in surprise, taking the scroll from the owl and hurrying inside with the beast still on his shoulder.

The cat, apparently not at all interested in his avian passenger, meowed in greeting and threaded figure eights around his feet as he dropped keys and wallets into the basket on the table as he always did and moved quickly into the kitchen.

_There’ll be a letter for you in your flat._

The owl hopped off his shoulder and perched on the back of a chair while he grabbed the letter, broke the wax seal, and opened it with shaky hands, sinking down onto a kitchen stool as he let out a long breath and began to read.

_Dear Mr. Snape:_

He frowned. That was wrong. He’d never been Mr. Snape, had he? He’d been – he’d been - _Professor_ Snape. _Headmaster_ Snape. _Mr._ Snape was his father. Or was he? 

_Congratulations! Sunday marks the end of your five-year magical hiatus. As you have successfully refrained from the use of magic, magical ingredients, magical substances, magical transportation, magical artifacts, magical potions and all other things magical, you may pick up your wand at the Ministry of Magic, London, Department of Magical Corrections, at ten o’clock in the morning on Monday, the second of September, 2005._

_At the time of your appointment, your magical guarantor, Harry James Potter, will also be released from the terms of his contract providing he has made payment on all mandated reparations and completed the assigned community service hours in your name._

_We at the Ministry of Magic, Department of Magical Corrections, sincerely hope you have enjoyed your time living as a Muggle and welcome you back to the magical community. Please note that any further infractions involving alignment with dark lords or use of unforgiveable curses will be met with immediate incarceration in Azkaban._

_Cordially,_

_Stella Culpepper_

_Chief Corrections Officer, Surviving Death Eaters Division_

The letter dropped out of Severus’ hands and fell to the table.

_Fuck._

He left the letter where it lay and slowly got to his feet. Just as slowly, he walked over to the fireplace and stared into it, forcing himself to take slow, deep breaths.

His eyes drifted to the clock and without hesitation, he pulled open a drawer that he hadn’t known was there for the five years the clock sat on his mantel.

Floo powder. Of course.

Five years. Five fucking years.

It was 2005. 

It was 2005. Harry Potter was 25 years old.

It was 2005 and James Henry Porter hadn’t been gored by bulls in Pamplona and didn’t really exist at all except that he did, and had ridden a dragon – or two – and broken into the castle - _foolish child_ \- and was there – there – on the dirty floor of that filthy shack trying to save him. 

_I love you, you old git._

He touched his lips, and the touch evoked the memory, and he knew that Harry Potter had kissed him before. That he had kissed Harry, too. That there was no womansing in his past. That there was something so much better, and so, so much worse.

He reached into the drawer without even thinking, extracted a handful of powder and tossed it into the cold fireplace.

It didn’t surprise him that flames leaped up where flames hadn’t been a moment before.

“Grimmauld Place,” he managed in a broken voice as he stepped forward.

It was a leap of faith, a step off a ledge. He was a fool, but the answers he needed weren’t here in his flat.

He disappeared in a swirl of colour and Sourpuss the cat, ever vigilant on the ottoman, yowled in satisfaction and Neptune the owl softly hooted his approval.

ooOOOoo

It wasn’t a storybook reunion.

In the months following the Battle of Hogwarts, through Severus’ long recovery, Harry and Severus had finally put aside their differences, forgiven the other’s previous transgressions, and settled into a cautious friendship. When it became clear that Severus would not automatically be absolved of his Death Eater past and Albus’ death, Harry had worked tirelessly on his defense, bringing in his friends, the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix, and every obscure wizarding law Hermione Granger could dig up to keep Severus out of Azkaban.

Harry and Severus spent a lot of time together. So much so that people talked.

 _She’s worried you’re not sleeping,_ Severus had said after Molly fire-called Harry a second time as they studied ancient volumes of wizarding law, tea growing cold as the fire in the hearth burned low and warm just before midnight. 

_She thinks I’m bothering you_ , Harry had muttered as Poppy closed the door to Severus’ room behind her after Flooing over with the potion the house-elves usually delivered.

 _You aren’t spending enough time with your friends_ , Severus said with a frown as Ron Weasley left alone after finding Harry sipping firewhisky on the sofa with Severus as Severus reviewed Hermione’s research.

 _This is what gives them those ideas_ , Severus warned as Harry, standing behind the sofa in the library, worked at the tense knots of muscle that formed in Severus’ shoulder after hours bent over tomes and notebooks.

 _Let them talk,_ Harry had whispered mere weeks later, wrapped in Severus’ arms, stretched out together on the narrow bed in Sirius’ old room in Grimmauld Place. _We’ve earned this, Severus. We’ve paid our dues._

 _They’ll never forgive me,_ Severus had warned. _This is not the life they’ve imagined for you, nor the life you’ve imagined for yourself. Am I really worth giving up your dreams?_

When his sentence had been delivered - five years in Azkaban – it was much more lenient than any of the other war criminals, and Severus had called it a minor victory. It was for the best. Harry would be forced to move on and Severus would die in prison, as was his fate.

Harry, however, had been devastated. Death Eaters had already been killed in Azkaban – by other Death Eaters. Severus would be easy prey, locked in place with a bullseye on his heart. With Hermione Granger doing the majority of the heavy lifting, they’d invoked the most obscure of wizarding laws and executed a risky move. Harry had come forward after Severus had been taken away to Azkaban and traded five years of his life in service to the Wizarding community in exchange for Severus’ freedom.

Freedom with a few key stipulations.

Severus would not be able to use magic for those five years, must surrender his wand, and must hold down a regular job in the Muggle world.

When Severus was inexplicably released from Azkaban a mere – and very miserable – seventy-two hours after being imprisoned, he stormed into the library at Grimmauld Place ordering Harry to get his arse down to the Ministry with him to revoke his offer, and told him in no uncertain terms that five years in Azkaban was preferable to living as a Muggle while Harry spent those same five years at the Ministry’s beck and call, an indentured poster child for their every whim and fancy.

Harry was prepared for his righteous indignation.

Severus, unfortunately, was not at all prepared for Hermione Granger’s well-honed memory modification charms with Fillius Flickwick’s masterful replacement memory enhancements while Minerva and Poppy stood by with arms crossed like guardian gargoyles backing them up.

( _They may have taken issue with Harry loving Severus but not a one questioned the need to save Severus from Azkaban._ )

It was unfortunate for Severus, and quite fortunate for Hermione and Fillius, that the Ministry had not yet returned his wand.

He went down in the middle of a raging fit, still insisting that life in Azkaban was preferable to life as a Muggle.

And so was born Silas Barnaby, a job at the National Railway Museum in York courtesy of Arabella Figg’s brother-in-law, and a cadre of friends looking out for him.

Arabella herself took a job in the town library, reverted to her childhood brogue and encouraged Silas’ baking. As did one-eared Nigel – no surprise that George Weasley filled that role in his off-time from the thriving shop in Diagon Alley.

Nearly everyone thought Harry should keep his distance from Severus, but Harry stood firm until they compromised on Harry as a portrait guard. All it took to get a museum wing renamed for Wulfric Dumbles was a great deal of cash in hand but creating a partially sentient portrait of a living person – well, that was a feat that required quite a bit of Wizarding skill. In the end it was a dual effort of transfiguring an existing portrait and a complex set of charms. Surprisingly, a foe glass was involved, and Moody’s magical eye, and a potion that tasted like cat dung that Hermione brewed and Harry had to consume whenever he wanted to visit his portrait. It left him rather vulnerable, as one’s brain couldn’t really be in two places at once, and his body back at Grimmauld place required a minder or it would give in to base instincts without its brain around to talk some sense into it. 

Fortunately Harry was all there – mind and body - when Severus Snape stepped out of the Floo into the familiar library of Grimmauld Place at 12:37 a.m. on the second of September 2005 and dusted himself off, much as he’d done daily for the past five years when he dismounted from his bicycle.

Harry was sitting in an ancient leather armchair beside a small table on which rested an expensive bottle of scotch and two empty glasses. Severus’ eyes moved from Harry’s open and tired face to a clock on the mantel where a hand with Severus’ face on it pointed straight up to _Home_.

He eyed Harry again. Harry hadn’t moved a muscle as he continued to watch Severus stoically. He glanced at the bottle of scotch, and Harry’s wand on the table beside it. 

Then his gaze swept around the library and he inhaled at last the aroma of ages-old volumes. He opened his mouth and closed it again, because he couldn’t decide exactly _where_ he should start. The roiling anger that had overwhelmed him at the last stroke of midnight had dissipated, that last bubble of outrage he’d not been able to express on that afternoon five years ago when he’d last walked into this very room to confront Harry after being released from Azkaban.

“Neptune,” he said at last. His voice cracked between the syllables.

Harry blinked. Opened his mouth. Thought better of it. Closed it. And waited. 

“Neptune is in my flat,” managed Severus.

“No worries,” Harry answered with a tentative smile. “Crookshanks will let her out if she gets restless.”

“Crookshanks?”

“Ah – sorry.” Harry gave him another tentative smile. “Sourpuss.” 

“The cat – _my_ cat – is a ….kneazle?” His voice faltered as he groped for the word.

“Half kneazle. Yeah. Look – Sev – ”

Severus might have been unsure of himself, but he knew he didn’t want to talk about the cat, and that he didn’t want apologies from Harry. 

“You – your friends – the Order – modified my memory.” His words were sharp and disbelieving. 

“We did,” Harry admitted. He sighed and eyed the table with the glittering bottle of scotch, then lifted the bottle and poured a measure of alcohol into each of the two glasses. He poured efficiently, as if he did so often. He was no longer a novice drinker more accustomed to butterbeer. 

Severus stepped forward to take the offered glass, then hesitated as Harry held it out to him.

“You’re not really an alcoholic, Severus,” Harry admitted. His voice held the apology he didn’t offer. “Take it.”

Severus accepted the glass and turned away from Harry, then took a bracing drink, closing his eyes in as the liquid warmed his throat. He looked around the familiar room, feeling out of place and horribly unsettled. He turned toward Harry and studied him. This was an older Harry. A grown-up Harry. A no longer practically a boy Harry. Stubble on his cheek and chin. New spectacles over compassionate yet weary green eyes. Faded scar beneath a shorter mop of dark, unruly hair. Comfortable demins that actually fit him. Dragonhide boots that weren’t hand-me-downs from one of the Weasleys.

“Why?” he asked at last in a voice both plaintive and demanding. “Why did you _do_ this?”

This Harry had the decency – and the courage – to look him in the eye. “You’d never have made it, Severus – either in prison for five years or in the Muggle world knowing you didn’t have your wand. We took a risk – a huge risk – but it kept you alive, and healthy, and relatively happy.”

“Happy?” Severus managed to croak. He was having trouble forming words as he took in the enormity of _five fucking years_ living as a Muggle in York with a sky-blue bicycle and envying the bloody vicar’s cassock and a family of ruddy owls dirtying up his window ledge. “I…. You….” He fumbled for words and hated himself for it. He was not this man.

“I know, Severus.” Harry’s eyes were shining with tears. A drop escaped and ran down his cheek. He didn’t wipe it away. “I’m sorry, but I’d do it again – I would – and no one – no one is going to say a word about us anymore. We’ve paid our dues and more. So yeah- tomorrow – you go get your wand and then you’re free to do whatever you want. You can stay in York and be a night watchman and bake biscuits and muffins and tarts or you can go back to Hogwarts – Minerva would take you in a heartbeat, Severus. Or I don’t know – go somewhere you’ve always wanted to go or start your own business or – or – or come here. And live with me.” He put his glass down on the table. The liquid sloshed. His hand was trembling. “Do whatever the hell you want, Severus. You’ve earned it,” he finished quietly.

“And you?” Severus took a single step forward. “What will you do now that your _indenture_ is over? Now that you’ve given up five years of _your_ life to the Ministry?” He didn’t know where the words were coming from – somewhere deep inside him that hadn’t seen the light of day in years. They were bitter words, angry words, but the anger wasn’t directed toward Harry, despite how venomous they sounded.

And Harry seemed to know that too.

“I’m going to breed owls,” Harry said softly. He wiped at his eyes with a knuckle and adjusted his spectacles, and gave Severus a wobbly smile. “I’ve been practicing a bit.”

The corner of Severus’ mouth twitched.

“Owls.” He couldn’t keep a disbelieving snort from escaping. “You’re going to breed owls.”

Harry was watching him cautiously. His fingers on the arm of the chair nearest his wand twitched.

“Well – yes. Post owls,” he clarified, still watching Severus cautiously.

“Practicing a bit, you say? In a horse chestnut tree, by chance?”

Harry’s face relaxed into a grin. 

“They’re not the brightest batch,” he admitted. “But it’s Venus’ first time raising a brood, and I don’t have the control I’d have in an owlery.”

“Ruddy owls,” Severus grumbled. “Leaving rubbish all over my window ledge.”

“Fledgling post owls do that.”

The clocked ticked the seconds away as they stared at each other, closing the chasm of the lost years. Finally, Severus broke the silence.

“I may never forgive you, you ridiculous, idiot boy.”

“Not so much a boy anymore,” Harry said. And he stood, relief washing over his tired face, took two steps forward, and threw himself into Severus’ arms.

The clock continued to count away the seconds, and the minutes, but the two men remained locked in each other’s arms, oblivious – for once – of the passing of time.

ooOOOoo

_The Daily Prophet – Tuesday, 3 September, 2005_

**Potter and Snape Complete Probation**

_Former Hogwarts professor and headmaster Severus Snape’s five-year probationary period ended Monday with the official return of his wand by the Ministry of Magic Corrections Division at the Ministry of Magic. Snape, who has spent the last five years in the Muggle town of York working as a night watchman at a popular railway museum, relinquished his wand and took on a Muggle job for the required five years while Wizarding Savior and Boy-Who-Lived Harry Potter guaranteed his cooperation with a parallel term of five years of community service to the Wizarding world and twenty thousand galleons in reparations._

_Snape, who appeared healthy and hale physically but in an apparent temper, arrived at the Ministry on Monday in Muggle attire accompanied by Potter. The two appeared together before the Probation Board in the Corrections office where Snape’s wand was returned to him. In turn, a certificate of completion of ten thousand hours of Wizarding community service and accompanying “Good Attitude” and “Always on Time” merit pins were awarded to Potter._

_The Ministry had no trouble keeping Potter busy fulfilling his service hours. During the past five years, Potter has been the caregiver in charge of the two-year-old class in the Ministry employee’s daycare center, Seeker on the Ministry’s Quidditch team in the Government Employees EWU (European Wizarding Union) league, desk agent at the Ministry’s complaint department, personal assistant to Ministry Undersecretary Percy Weasley, and was the star participant for five years in the annual Ministry “Win a Date with a Hero” war reconstruction fund raiser auction._

_Exit paperwork filled out by Potter lists his future plans as “working to reduce restrictions on cauldron bottom thickness, getting a new roommate and shagging a lot” while Snape plans to become Minister of Magic, fire Percy Weasley, shag Harry Potter and open a bakery._

Harry lowered the paper and watched Severus methodically cutting his poached eggs into perfect quarters.

“Minister of Magic?” he asked fondly.

“Cauldron bottoms?” returned Severus, popping a bite of egg into his mouth.

“You really should be more angry with me,” Harry said. He looked ridiculously happy and very well-shagged. 

“Oh, I plan to remind you quite often just how much I appreciate your friend Ms. Granger making me forget I was gay,” Severus grumbled.

Harry smiled broadly as he shifted on his chair. “I’ll need a lot of reminders,” he said. “I’m really quite impertinent.”

Severus raised a single eyebrow, nabbed the paper from him, and continued on with his toast and eggs.

ooOOOoo

Today, Silas Barnaby’s Doughy Delights sits three doors down from Hedwig’s Owlet Outlet. The owl business is particularly brisk in late summer and at Christmas, while the bakery sees traffic throughout the year. Friends stop by quite often, including a brilliant bushy-haired woman who is not really a doctor, an elderly woman who’s not actually a librarian, and a one-eared man who most certainly is a war veteran. Another elderly Scottish witch drops in from time to time as well, choosing a treasure trove of treats to take back to her faculty at Hogwarts, which is delivered by a particularly athletic post owl borrowed from the shop three doors down. A blue bicycle is often parked outside the shop, though it’s not secured with combination padlock any longer. Everyone in Diagon Alley knows who owns the blue bicycle and knows better than to touch it.

Severus is no longer a watchman, but is as meticulous, as alert and as orderly as he always has been. Baking hasn’t totally supplanted brewing. He enjoys brewing, much as he enjoys baking, and always has a side project or two going on in the cellar of the cottage in the country where he lives with Harry. He’s not at all interested in teaching, or running a school, though he’s now on the Board of Directors for the National Railway Foundation, the very one that oversees the National Railway Museum in York. 

For his part, Harry has put those five years of servitude behind him and looks solidly forward. His life is now filled with all the things he loves and only a bit of the necessary-but-not-so-nice things one must tolerate to get through life as the retired Savior of the Wizarding world. He is a respected breeder of post owls, a Quidditch referee for the Hogwarts house league and the number one fan of Silas Barnaby’s Doughy Delights. He’s gained a stone or so since Severus came home a decade ago because he can’t resist the treats and goodness, why should he have to? He’s the favorite uncle of a dozen or more Weasley offspring, godfather to a handful, and with Ginny Weasley, the default captain of the pick-up teams that spring up whenever the crowd gets together for a birthday celebration, which is pretty much most weekends in any given month.

Severus has forgiven Harry and his many cohorts, and recognises that the five years he spent in the town of York as the night watchman at the National Railway Museum, boring as they were in hindsight, were some of the most peaceful years of his life. His blood pressure stayed well in check, he didn’t even have to try to stay out of the newspapers, and he had a perfectly plausible explanation for the scarring round his neck, one that served as a constant reminder to stay on the strait and narrow. 

Hermione’s idea, of course. She really _was_ the most brilliant witch of her generation.

He healed in York and came out on the other end a stronger person, a better person.

Besides, Severus thinks as Harry pops into the shop, a fledgling owlet in training on his shoulder, he wouldn’t be baking at all if it weren’t for Harry’s ridiculous self-sacrifice. He passes Harry a jam roly-poly over the counter and Harry smiles his thanks and leans over the counter to kiss Severus and comes away with flour on his chin and his spectacles crooked on his face.

It’s a good look on him, and he greets old Mr. Flanagan as he leaves the shop, jam roly-poly poised halfway to his mouth, and waves to Severus through the glass as he heads back to work.

Severus’ eyes follow him until he’s out of sight, then he turns briskly to his new customer, and goes on with his day.

Five years was apparently the perfect amount of time to eradicate the venom that raced through his veins, to take away the rancor he felt toward nearly the entire wizarding populace, and to ruin him for anyone else but Harry. He’s not a perfect man, nor necessarily a very nice one. He still scowls at children who smear the glass display cases with their grubby fingers and taps his foot impatiently when a customer takes too long deciding which of the pastries on display suits her best. But at the end of the day, he cleans up, hangs up his apron, locks the door and packs a leftover pastry or two into the basket of his bicycle.

Harry joins him moments later and balances expertly on the back of the blue bicycle, arms around Severus as he pedals to the public Floo outside the Leaky Cauldron. Neptune the owl perches on the handlebars like a figurehead on a ship, feathers ruffling pleasantly as the air rushes by. Harry waves to the passersby if they lift their hands or call out to them, but Severus is serious about the business of getting them to their destination and keeps a firm hold on the handlebars and an eye out for obstacles and impediments. 

It’s not the life either of them dreamed of when they dared to dream of a life after the war, after Voldemort. It’s so, so much more.

Harry tightens his hold on Severus as Severus takes a corner and Neptune hoots in warning at a witch with a double pushchair. They sail by without incident and Harry blows the blonde witch a kiss and waves at the toddlers who are clutching matching dragon plushies.

“Hullo Lorcan! Hullo Lysander!”

The witch smiles brightly, and the children wave back at him as they disappear around another corner. 

Ten minutes later, Severus steps out of the Floo into their cottage.

A painting of a dragon – a green dragon, posed before a familiar backdrop of forest and loch and far-off village – greets him today as always. It serves to remind him that the object of his desire, the center of his life, is real, and present, and not a fairytale fancy. 

Said center of his life and object of his desire stumbles out of the Floo behind him and he turns automatically to catch Harry and steady him until he’s sorted again and steady on his feet.

And even though they’ve seen each other a half dozen times today already, Harry gives Severus a lingering welcome home kiss that promises more, then goes off to start dinner while Severus makes his rounds.

He feeds the ordinary gray tabby that’s adopted them – she keeps the vermin away and he tolerates her presence even with her clear preference for Harry. Next, he clears off the window ledges which are once again littered with the gifts from the latest batch of post owl fledglings. He finds a letter addressed to their neighbor up the lane, a crushed cardboard tube from a roll of toilet paper, a plastic drinking straw and a five-pound note. The note would be from Niffler, who apparently was born with a sharp eye for valuables. Last week she brought them a gold pocket watch and Harry is still trying to find its owner. He’s offered it to Severus, but Severus doesn’t need a pocket watch– he has the perfectly serviceable wristwatch with mini sundial his mother gifted him when he turned seventeen. He doesn’t have to visit the British Museum to translate the runes on it – he can read them perfectly well. 

He isn’t surprised anymore when the dents and scratches on his bicycle repair themselves, is not concerned about ghosts in cemeteries or shadowy faces in the fireplace, and still sees Dr. Granger for regular dental visits. 

He makes the same rounds in the same order every evening before dinner – feed the cat, clear the ledges, tend the herb garden, bring in the Muggle post, a quick patrol around the house to check that all is well and as it should be. And last, always last, he passes right by the portrait and finds Harry in the kitchen and offers a hand at setting the table or plating the food.

They’ll donate the five-pound note to the museum as they always do with found money– the curators are still hoping to replace the missing portrait in the Trains in Literature wing. They’ve discussed commissioning a new portrait, but whenever their board agenda calls for assigning someone to contact the Dumbles estate, the resolution is inexplicably tabled until the next meeting. 

They sit on the porch stairs after dinner. The cat has settled in Harry’s lap and he strokes it while he watches the horizon where the sun is dipping low. Severus squints at his copy of _The Daily Prophet_ in the fading light, and Harry hums and idly casts a Lumos.

“Thank you,” Severus says distractedly as he continues perusing an article about the new staff at Hogwarts, scoffing as he reads the qualifications of Ignacio Fidelius, the new potions professor. “Mastery Pending my arse.”

“Minerva would take you back in a heartbeat,” Harry reminds him with a fond smile, still looking toward the horizon where a barn owl is swooping slowly toward them. “You could help out the house-elves in the kitchens in your free time.” He holds out his arm and the owl flutters over his head with a great rush of air and lands behind him on the porch rail. It is only when Harry offers an owl treat that looks quite a bit like a sherbet lemon that it hops casually to his shoulder and holds out the letter grasped in its talon.

“Hogwarts is infested with children,” Severus mutters after a moment. “Is that Dumbles?”

Harry hums in confirmation.

“That owl hasn’t hit target once in two weeks. You might want to consider giving up on ….”

“He’s still in training,” Harry insists as the owl hops back onto the railing and he unrolls the scroll and scans the message. “Excellent! Luna and Rolf want to come out this weekend and pick out their new owl.”

“By Luna and Rolf you mean Luna, Rolf and the twins, I presume?” Severus sighs and folds up the paper.

“You presume correctly,” Harry answers, leaning his head against Severus’ shoulder and snuggling in when Severus wraps an arm around his waist. “And you like them.”

“I tolerate them,” Severus corrects. He is mentally composing a to-do list to accomplish before the weekend, a list that is partly about baking but mostly about securing breakables and removing anything a small child could use as a stepping stool. “Custard cremes or jammy dodgers?”

“Make them both – we’ll get through whatever they don’t finish off.” 

His stomach growls in pleasant anticipation and he pats it with a happy sigh. They sit silently together as the sun dips below the tree line. Dumbles the owl hoots softly on the railing beside them and another owl calls back from a tree near the edge of the wood. 

There is absolutely nothing extraordinary about this quiet life of theirs except that they are Harry Potter and Severus Snape and they are here, living it together. 

_Postscript_

In time, Severus will go back to Hogwarts, but only when Harry accepts the Care of Magical Creatures professorship. He still doesn’t much like children, but he’ll open a pop-up bakery in a cart he’ll pull behind his bicycle, though only on Hogsmeade weekends when he can empty the pockets of the magical children of Britain of the knuts and sickles they’ve saved for Honeydukes.

He’ll never make it to the Bake Off – his application will be rejected summarily because he isn’t exactly an amateur any longer. The rejection letter, delivered by owl and written on red parchment which unfolds itself and explodes in his face after admonishing him on trying to cheat, leaves no doubt that there’s wizardry of sorts going on at the Great British Bake Off.

**Author's Note:**

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